Three Bars: Adidas'S Brand Soul

"Adidas is like a tiger protecting its cubs, fiercely protecting its classic stripes."

In April 10th, the German sports giant once again won the protection of "cubs".

The favorable ruling of the European Court marks that Adidas's "three bars" hegemony is moving towards the "two bars" and "four bars". It also indicates that its "striped hegemony" has crossed Germany, and has begun to expand to the European Union and even the whole world.

Although Adidas's trademark is three stripes, the ruling of the European Court of justice can legally prohibit any competitor from using two or four stripes.

The court explained that the important thing is not the number of stripes, but whether the buyers will link it to the Adidas trademark.

Adidas's winning targets include C&A, H&M, Marca Mode and Vendex, the four largest international garment manufacturers.

And for this paper decision, Adidas has been fighting for 10 years.

In the late 90s of last century, Adidas filed a complaint against a local court in Holland, claiming that the two stripes designed by the four garment manufacturers violated their trademark rights and interests.

The Holland court has been pending until the two sides finally decided to submit it to the European Court of justice.

After the ruling of the European Court of justice, the case will return to the Holland court again, and the latter will determine the amount of compensation and so on.

In fact, in the 70s of last century, the German court had made a final judgment. Any two, three or four stripes were designed to infringe the trademark rights of Adidas's "three bars".

With this decision, Adidas even defeated its old rival, Nike.

In 2005, a pair of parallel stripes was stitched on the joint of Nike's short pants listed in January 2006. In January 2006, the local court of Cologne, Germany, supported Adidas's appeal and ordered Nike to stop selling such infringing garments and fined 1 million euros.

During the same period, Tom Tailor, a German garment manufacturer, was fined 500 thousand euros for the design of two bars of a jacket cuff.

Outside Germany, Adidas's "stripes" are also happening.

In 2003, Adidas filed a lawsuit against Fitness Universal Trading Corporation in Luxemburg.

In 2005, Adidas continued to accuse Ralph Lauren and A&F of the US court that their two striped patterns of clothing and sports shoes violated their trademarks.

But the design of the "five bars" is still an exception.

Since 1966, the US K-Swiss footwear brand has been using uncontroversial five stripes.

This month's ruling by the European Court of justice means that in the EU, if two, three or four stripes are used on clothing and sports shoes, it is likely to infringe Adidas's trademark rights.

This is, of course, a blow to Adidas's competitors, but it also caused some independent designers' dissatisfaction.

Ursula Hudson, a well-known designer in London, said in a media interview that the design elements of the stripe should not be the private property of a company.

She believes that the most dangerous result of this decision is "restricting the creative inspiration of designers and combating the entire design industry".

Xinhua News Agency April 19, 2008: Chairman of the French LVMH group and Bernard Arnaud, the great shareholder of Carrefour Group, France, on the 17 day, accepting the interview with the Figaro newspaper, said that the success of the Olympic Games is very important to China and the whole world. This is a rare opportunity for the world to manifest peace and unity. It needs to be treasured and should not boycott the Beijing Olympic Games.

He said that China has made great progress in economic development and opening to the outside world for more than 20 years, and many countries in the world, including European countries, need to improve. The West should not criticizing China and boycott the Beijing Olympic Games.

If we want to have a dialogue with China, we should not interfere with the pmission of the Olympic torch.

Arnaud also categorically denied rumors that he had sponsored Darai's separatist group online.

He said he never intervened in political and religious affairs, whether in Tibet or elsewhere.

LVMH group is a famous luxury group in France, and has luxury brands such as Louis Weedon.

Arnaud is also a major shareholder of Carrefour Group.